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Reading IMO Smell, Turning Piles, and Pulling Thorns

Drake opens with the I Ching hexagram Deliverance, then farm news: new chicks hatched in the IMO box and are already eating egg and brown rice.

The video segment is at Master Lee's farm in Muju, filming his IMO turning apparatus (a mechanical tiller for IMO 4). The lesson is judging a pile by smell and touch: a good ferment smells good, while an ammonia or actinomycete smell means the pile is too wet, air can't get through, and it's overheating. Turning drops the temperature about 10 degrees and gets oxygen back in. A deep sample read 33°C and 57% moisture. Drake's point throughout: calibrate your own body to sense moisture and temperature instead of relying on instruments.

Other notes: raw manure mixed into IMO 4 gets jokingly called "bio" to dodge USDA red flags on terminology. A weed Master Cho identified can be made into a plant juice to treat anthracnose. For nutrition, spray fruit solution right before harvest and leaf solution right after. A time-lapse drive shows the route from Muju to Goksong, home of Master Lee's quail farm.

Audience questions at the end: whether comfrey or plantain pulls a thorn from the foot (Drake suggests soaking in hot water, then a lit match in a beer bottle for suction), and whether narrow-leaf or thick-leaf plantain is more medicinal (thick-leaf, from what he knows).

Questions answered

  • 13:34 What should you add to a wood chip mountain to clean it up? — Put lactobacillus and sea water into it, maybe some yeast, same as the manure treatment, to clean anything bad out.
  • 21:04 How do you know an IMO pile is overheating? — If it starts to smell like actinomycete instead of a good smell, it's overheating — turn the pile right away.
  • 26:43 What temperature and moisture did the deep pile show? — 33 degrees Celsius and 57 percent moisture deep inside, where water pools up.
  • 30:30 Do you need a moisture or temperature meter for compost? — No — calibrate your own body to sense moisture and temperature, then a fancy instrument just confirms what your body already knows.
  • 32:33 Why does a pile smell like ammonia? — Too much moisture blocks air from getting through, so actinobacteria take over instead of aerobic microbes; spread it thinner to fix it.
  • 37:05 Why call the manure pile going into IMO 4 'bio' instead of manure? — Just to dodge USDA red flags on the terminology — it's the same raw manure mixed into IMO 4.
  • 38:36 How much does turning a pile cool it down? — Turning lowers the temperature about 10 degrees and gets oxygen back into the pile.
  • 40:06 Is there a weed you can use against anthracnose? — Yes — Master Cho identified a weed you can turn into a plant juice to treat anthracnose.
  • 47:36 When should you spray fruit solution versus leaf solution? — Give fruit solution right before harvest and leaf solution right after harvest, so the plant carries more nutrition.
  • 1:02:00 Will comfrey or plantain pull a thorn out of your foot? — Not sure — try soaking it in hot water, then use the old trick of a lit match in a beer bottle to suck the thorn out.
  • 1:02:42 Is narrow-leaf or thick-leaf plantain more medicinal? — The thick-leaf one is a bit more medicinal, from what Drake knows.

Topics: imo, imo4, actinomycete, moisture, temperature, compost turning, plant juice, anthracnose, fruit solution, leaf solution, chickens, thorn removal

KNF Office Hours is a free live Q&A every Sunday at 9 AM HST. Bring your question to pureknf.org/learn/questions or join live.

In this episode

  1. 0:00 Intro and I Ching: Deliverance
  2. 5:55 New chicks hatch in the IMO box
  3. 6:41 Master Lee's IMO turning apparatus
  4. 8:15 Poultry training, episode 8
  5. 12:48 Judging IMO by smell
  6. 13:34 Wood chip piles and burying an IMO trap
  7. 21:04 Actinomycete smell means overheating
  8. 26:43 Moisture and temperature deep in the pile
  9. 30:30 Calibrate your body, not the instrument
  10. 32:33 Ammonia smell, wet piles, spreading thin
  11. 37:05 Raw manure mixed into IMO 4
  12. 38:36 Turning drops temperature about 10 degrees
  13. 40:06 A weed for anthracnose plant juice
  14. 47:36 Fruit solution before harvest, leaf after
  15. 58:07 Time-lapse: Muju to Goksong
  16. 1:00:23 Muju and Goksong farm locations
  17. 1:02:00 Pulling a thorn with a hot beer bottle
  18. 1:02:42 Narrow-leaf vs thick-leaf plantain
  19. 1:03:24 Sign-off

Transcript

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